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The Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is a multinational mining company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Its principal corporate offices are located in Reno, Nevada and has operations throughout the Americas. It merged with Dayton Mining Corporation in 2002. [1] [2] In 2013, Pacific Rim became a wholly owned subsidiary of OceanaGold. [3]
As the company's projects were still in development, Pacific Rim had no income in 2009. At the end of 2009, the company's total assets were valued at $8.2 million. [4]
The proposed El Dorado mine project is Pacific Rim's largest project. The company gained the mine property, of 144 square kilometres, from its merger with Dayton Mining Corporation in 2002, [1] and claims to have invested approximately $77 million to discover and prepare to begin mining gold deposits in Cabañas department. The company estimates that it can extract 1.4 million gold-equivalent troy ounces. [5]
According to US think tank Public Citizen Pacific Rim did not complete a feasibility study required for a mining permit, and in July 2008 ceased exploratory drilling. [6] Expatriate Salvadorans and local activists connected with the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) political party campaigned for the project to be discontinued over human rights issues, and concerns of pollution arising from the extraction of gold and silver [7] . As of December 2008, 24 mining projects were waiting for new mining laws introduced by the National Coalition Party (PCN) to be finalized. However, environmentalists warned of negative environmental and social impacts if mining went ahead. [1] [2] On June 16, 2009, FMLN lawmakers demanded a permanent ban on gold and silver mining in El Salvador, whose requirements meant that "companies involved in mining activities in El Salvador would have 180 days to abort operations and leave the country." However, the proposal did not become law.[ citation needed ]
Pacific Rim claimed that the mine would be environmentally responsible, provide jobs and spur economic development. The company also claimed that dewatering activities in the mine would produce substantial amounts of water, and that it would collect runoff rain water. [8] However, some organizations and the Salvadorian government questioned these claims. [9]
In 2008, tensions in Cabañas rose as three prominent anti-mining activists were murdered. [6] In June 2009—after the murder of a local pro-mining businessman, Horacio Menjivar, two months earlier—environmental campaigner Marcelo Rivera Moreno was kidnapped, tortured and murdered [10] . In August, Menjivar's son, Oscar, was arrested for the attempted murder of another anti-mining activist, Ramiro Rivera Gomez (no relation to Marcelo Rivera Moreno). In October, Esperanza Menjivar, the widow of Horacio and mother of Oscar, was murdered. On December 20, 2009, Ramiro Rivera Gomez was murdered, [11] followed by another anti-mining activist, Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, on December 26. [12] Recinos Sorto was eight months pregnant when she was shot dead, and her two-year-old son was also wounded in the attack. [13]
Many Salvadoran anti-mining activists suggested the murders were connected to Pacific Rim. Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, authors of The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed, wrote that in 2008-2009 Pac Rim was anxious to make alliances with politicians in El Salvador. Rodrigo Chavez Palacios, son of a former presidential candidate, was hired as vice president of Pacific Rim El Salvador, the local subsidiary of Pacific Rim Mining Corporation. [14] Rodrigo Chavez Palacios was later arrested in 2014 for participating in the murder of Franklin Ortiz Mendoza [15] and was released on parole in December 2020. [16] According to Broad and Cavanagh, Marcelo Rivera’s brother, fellow activist Miguel Rivera, formally requested the attorney general to investigate Palacios as potentially involved in Marcelo’s murder, but no investigation was launched. [14]
Local police and other investigators believed that they were connected to a series of murders (six in total) between two neighborhood groups. [17] [18]
In June 2010, Pacific Rim CEO Thomas Shrake testified before the Canadian parliament's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, stating that suggestions that the company had been involved in the murder of anti-mining activists were "simply outrageous" and that they would be "contrary to everything we believe and practice." He also noted that the mine operation and employees had been victims of attacks, including "mobs" that damaged their property and hacked down trees planted as part of the company's reforestation program. [19]
In response to President Antonio Saca's refusal to allow a mining permit, Pacific Rim Mining Corp. invoked a provision of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2009 to place the matter in the hands of an international arbitration court. As Canada is not a party to CAFTA, the company declared ad hoc a subsidiary in Nevada as the base for the claim. [20] The company sought over $300 million in damages, asserting that the government "changed the rules of the game" laid out in the nation's mining laws. [21]
When Pacific Rim invoked the CAFTA international arbitration provision in 2009, initially seeking $77 million in damages, the Salvadoran government called the action "an attack" on its national sovereignty. [22] Other gold mining companies with operations in Central America, such as Goldcorp, said they may use the Pacific Rim case to adjudicate disputes of their own. [23] In October 2012, Pacific Rim signed a deal with Crowell & Moring to represent their case in the final phase of arbitration, which was being handled by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). [24]
In October 2016, the ICSID dismissed Pacific Rim's claim for an eventual amount of $250 million, ruling that their case was "without merit." Pacific Rim was also ordered to pay the Salvadoran government $8 million in legal fees. [25]
El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2024 was estimated to be 6 million according to a government census.
The economy of El Salvador has experienced relatively low rates of GDP growth, in comparison to other developing countries. Rates have not risen above the low single digits in nearly two decades – part of a broader environment of macroeconomic instability which the integration of the United States dollar has done little to improve. One problem that the Salvadoran economy faces is the inequality in the distribution of income. In 2011, El Salvador had a Gini Coefficient of .485, which although similar to that of the United States, leaves 37.8% of the population below the poverty line, due to lower aggregate income. The richest 10% of the population receives approximately 15 times the income of the poorest 40%.
The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front is a Salvadoran political party and former guerrilla rebel group.
The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, based in Washington, D.C., is a national activist organization with chapters in various cities in the United States. CISPES supports the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the progressive social movement in El Salvador.
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) is an international arbitration institution established in 1966 for legal dispute resolution and conciliation between international investors and States. ICSID is part of and funded by the World Bank Group, headquartered in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It is an autonomous, multilateral specialized institution to encourage international flow of investment and mitigate non-commercial risks by a treaty drafted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's executive directors and signed by member countries. As of May 2016, 153 contracting member states agreed to enforce and uphold arbitral awards in accordance with the ICSID Convention.
Arturo Rivera y Damas was the ninth Bishop and fifth Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. Msgr. Rivera's term as archbishop (1983–1994) coincided with the Salvadoran Civil War. He was the immediate successor of Archbishop Óscar Romero. During Romero's archbishopric (1977–1980), Rivera was Romero's key ally. He had been the auxiliary of Romero's long-reigning predecessor, Luis Chávez y González (1938–1977). He was also a friend of Mother Teresa, who stayed at his family home on her visit to El Salvador
OceanaGold Corporation (OceanaGold) is a gold mining and exploration company based in Vancouver, Canada and Brisbane, Australia.
Carlos Alberto Menjívar Aguilar Jr. is a former professional footballer who last played for Santa Tecla F.C. Born in the United States, he played for the El Salvador national team.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, non-binary and otherwise queer, non-cisgender, non-heterosexual citizens of El Salvador face considerable legal and social challenges not experienced by fellow heterosexual, cisgender Salvadorans. While same-sex sexual activity between all genders is legal in the country, same-sex marriage is not recognized; thus, same-sex couples—and households headed by same-sex couples—are not eligible for the same legal benefits provided to heterosexual married couples.
There have been persistent concerns over human rights in El Salvador. Some of these date from the civil war of 1980–92. More recent concerns have been raised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. They include women's rights, child labor, and unlawful killings and harassment of labor union members and other social activists.
Albert Jan van den Berg is a founding partner of Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels, an emeritus Professor of Law at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC and at the University of TsinghuaArchived 2018-08-10 at the Wayback Machine School of Law, Beijing and a member of the advisory board and Faculty of the Geneva Master of Laws in International Dispute Settlement (MIDS), Geneva.
Jesse Freeston is a Canadian video journalist and filmmaker on social movements in North and Central America, the military-industrial complex, the global economic crisis, and undocumented migration. He is mostly known for exposing fraud in the Honduran election of 2009, and for his coverage of the 2010 G-20 summit in Toronto, where Freeston was attacked by an officer with the Toronto Police Service before having his microphone ripped from his hand by another officer. His video-journalism work with The Real News Network, which is all licensed copyleft, has been republished by outlets including The Huffington Post, Common Dreams and Le monde diplomatique. In 2012 he made three 30-minute Spanish-language documentaries for the Venezuelan government propaganda network Telesur.
Return to El Salvador is a 2010 documentary film directed by Philadelphia filmmaker Jamie Moffett and narrated by Martin Sheen. It chronicles the rebuilding of El Salvador in the years after the Salvadoran Civil War, and explores the impact a lasting legacy of violence and unrest has had on those who survived, fled, and are now seeking to return.
The Philip Morris v. Uruguay case was an investor-state dispute settlement case initiated on 19 February 2010 and concluded on 8 July 2016, in which the multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI), whose head office is located in Lausanne, lodged a complaint against Uruguay that was resolved by international arbitration under the auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
On December 2, 1980, four Catholic missionaries from the United States working in El Salvador were raped and murdered by five members of the El Salvador National Guard. The murdered missionaries were Maryknoll Sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan.
Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto was a Salvadoran anti-mining activist who was murdered while protesting the opening of a mine by the Pacific Rim Mining Corporation.
El Dorado is a former gold mine, located San Isidro, Cabañas, El Salvador.
Mining in El Salvador was once utilized to extract gold and other minerals from beneath the surface, but has generally been halted due to policy changes in the last two decades.
Commerce Group Corp. is an American mining company based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The company held mining rights to various mines in El Salvador.
San Sebastian Gold Mine is a gold mine located 2.5 miles northwest of Santa Rosa de Lima in the La Unión Department of El Salvador.